For purely face-saving purposes, the 33-yard run by Mike Davis near the end of the third quarter Sunday against Arizona will go down as one of Seattle’s most significant offensive plays of the 2017 season. It didn’t set up a touchdown and, in fact, led only to a Jon Ryan punt, but it helped Davis finish the year with 240 yards, making him Seattle’s leading rusher among running backs.

Pete Carroll offered assurance that rumors he wanted to retire were untrue. He's also confident that John Schneider will remain Seahawks general manager and not pursue a vacancy with his hometown team in Green Bay. He said CB Richard Sherman, while healing well from surgery to fix an Achilles tendon tear on his right leg, will undergo ankle surgery on the left leg to remove bone spurs that will take four to six weeks to heal.

When the Seahawks were denied the NFL playoffs Sunday, their ouster ended one of the more remarkable runs in modern NFL history: five consecutive years with at least one playoff victory, coinciding with QB Russell Wilson's tenure as the team's starting quarterback. Now that Seattle won't be extending its streak to six, the question is, what happens next -- a reload or a remake?

Eliminated from the playoffs Sunday with a 26-24 loss to Arizona (as well as Atlanta's 22-10 win over Carolina), the Seahawks (9-7) will have the 18th pick in the first round of the NFL draft, the league announced Monday. Due to a run of five consecutive years in the postseason as well as numerous trades, Seattle has not had a top 20 pick since 2012 when it selected DE Bruce Irvin of West Virginia at No. 15.

The great run of the Seattle Seahawks ended with the eerie quiet of an errant field goal in a silent stadium. The cacophony that seemed to swirl around the Pete Carroll Seahawks -- regularly successful, always compelling and often controversial -- was gone. The circus, it seemed in the twilight of New Year's Eve, was pulling out of town.

For the first time since 2011, the Seahawks will miss the NFL playoffs, deservedly dispatched into a long off-season by dint of an entirely avoidable 26-24 loss to the Arizona Cardinals at CenturyLink Field Sunday. Coupled with Atlanta's 22-10 victory over the Carolina Panthers, Seattle lost out on both outcomes they needed to grab the NFC's No. 6 seed (box).

If the Seahawks want to get on the good side of Earl "Come Get Me" Thomas that costs them no money, here's an insider tip: Dial up a safety blitz for him. Just one time. Because for all the awards, honors, rings and crowns he has, he wants one football-field jewel: A sack.

What are the chances the Seahawks offense will have a marked uptick in production Sunday at the Clink against Arizona?

About the same as the Seahawks have of repeating the absurd play that did in the Cardinals Nov. 9 in Glendale -- a 54-yard catch-and-run by WR Doug Baldwin after retreating QB Russell Wilson spun away from the rush so many times he created a waterspout.

In addition to the usual NFC West home games against Arizona, the Los Angeles Rams Rams and San Francisco, the Seahawks in 2018 will host the Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs at CenturyLink Field.

Surprised as were many Seahawks fans when Earl Thomas said "come get me" to Cowboys coach Jason Garrett after Seattle's 21-12 win Sunday in Dallas, Thomas was just as surprised at the tempest caused by his remarks, according to coach Pete Carroll.

"He was blown away," Carroll said Tuesday on his weekly ESPN 710 radio show. "He couldn't believe it . . . If he had another chance, he wouldn't say that again."

The Seahawks twice had opportunities to put rushing touchdowns on the board Sunday in Dallas, once near the end of the second quarter and again early in the fourth. Both plays failed. Neither had a material effect on the outcome, a 21-12 Seattle victory, but it pushed the franchise closer to an NFL-record feat of run-game dubiousness.

Being dead is no way to go through football life. After six days of that, the Seahawks stuck a hand up from the grave Sunday in Dallas and grabbed them some Cowboys. As with any zombie film, what it lacked in elegance it made up for in preposterousness.

If you had the courage to peek through your fingers, you saw a game that will be talked about in Seattle bars and coffee houses whenever the subject turns to two-headed calves, Salvador Dali paintings and Dr. Seuss books.

QB Russell Wilson salvaged an otherwise dismal offensive performance by the Seahawks with a pair of touchdown passes and the Seattle defense logged three key takeaways in a 21-12 victory over the Cowboys in Dallas Sunday that kept head coach Pete Carroll's club in postseason contention for one more week (box).

Remember how the schedule early in the season was doing the Seahawks a favor, with an abundance of lesser teams? The schedule finishes its diabolical catch-up plan Sunday -- in Dallas on Christmas Eve against an 8-6 Cowboys team needing a win to keep alive playoff hopes and welcoming back freight-train RB Ezekiel Elliott after a six-game suspension.

The NFL Thursday hit the Seahawks with a $100,000 fine for their failure to properly apply the concussion protocol on a hit to the jaw of QB Russell Wilson during a Nov. 9 win over the Arizona Cardinals. A joint NFL-NFLPA review also determined that Seattle's coaching and medical staffs will be required to attend remedial training regarding the protocol.

NFL geophysicists are still assessing damage from the Rams' 42-7 win over the Seahawks at the Clink Sunday. So far no part of the NFC West has fallen into the sea, but power lines seem down in Seattle, and fractures are visible.

The Seahawks have made five consecutive trips to the playoffs, winning at least one game, and taken the NFC West title three of the past four seasons. But all of that seems like fading history in the wake of developments Sunday at CenturyLink Field, where the Los Angeles Rams, 4-12 one year ago, obliterated the locals in a game that was effectively over midway through the second quarter.

The Rams needed just 91 scrimmage yards and 13 plays to go up 13-0. Given the ruthless pass rush, and a Los Angeles offense never needing to risk throwing downfield because RB Todd Gurley was free to party on a defense missing LB K.J. Wright and operating with a limited LB Bobby Wagner, no comeback was possible.

Thank you! Art Thiel and Steve Rudman

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